Product(s): ManageEngine Endpoint Central
Overall Comment:"It works well for our environment from image creation and/or deployment to endpoint inventory and patch management. The software deployment is also quite nice in that there are available packages that can be deployed with the option of having it automatically updated as new versions come out to not have to keep track of the latest build on each application. I just hope that the custom settings (such as product keys and/or install presets) added to each software package does carry over to the next instance as it breaks the operation whenever a new version is added as there is no notification to the administrators whenever a new package is updated. These software packages can also be used by having them be available in the self-service portal (as an on-demand feature on the client end) to have users install/pull packages as needed (can be used for testing) as supposed to the deployment (push) from the server. It also comes with other utilities such as remote desktop and terminal for further user support and/or endpoint administration. Another tool is the remote shutdown and/or start-up (via Wake-On-Lan, if clients are configured) to be scheduled as well. Reporting is useful for a quick and/or detailed view of any task, patch deployment, inventory query, etc. "
Endpoint automatic patch deployment (APD) to accommodate various scenarios. It is flexible in that it not only allows for scheduling using the policies in their tasks (named configurations), but also in their APD. The dashboard on patches and threats is also useful for a quick glance at the total number of vulnerabilities, over time, and their severity.
I am unable to create dynamic groups created using the same inventory filter criteria as they are not available. I had to export a filtered list to a file and then import it into a static group to have the same devices that are currently in use to begin a task. I hope there is a push to make the filter and group criteria universal to allow seamless integration into other scenarios such as only include devices that have the agents status live. Another is that I hope there is more admin control and transparency on the tasks each client device is currently running as supposed to a generic remark. I find it impractical to have to wait for a test deployment when the destination device has just started and is stuck for quite some time when the other task being pushed to run at time only takes at most a few seconds to complete. A better approach would be to have admin the ability to reorder the priority or manage the list of tasks currently being conducted on a specific target. The last one is what was mentioned in the overall comment as to having the current software settings when auto-update is enabled for a specific package.